John Keells Holdings scales retail advanced analytics with Azure Databricks

Overview

John Keells Holdings' OCTAVE Center of Excellence used Azure Databricks, Delta Lake and MLflow to unify siloed data across 70 companies and seven industry verticals, running over 40 advanced analytics use cases including a store-clustering supply chain optimization pilot for its Keells supermarket chain that improved dry-category revenue and cut the time for annual category review.

The challenge

John Keells Holdings engaged millions of customers across 70 companies in seven industries but could not effectively utilize its wide variety and large quantum of data due to siloed systems, hindering strategic and operational decisions such as inventory allocation, which had traditionally been based purely on store size rather than customer demand data.

The solution

JKH's OCTAVE Center of Excellence adopted Azure Databricks, integrating MLflow and Delta Lake into its Microsoft Azure stack, to centralize and democratize data across engineering, science and analytics teams; it piloted an advanced analytics model at Keells supermarkets that clusters stores based on customer-behavior features to inform assortment decisions instead of relying purely on store size.

Reported business value

The store-clustering pilot showed material improvement in "dry categories" revenue and a significant reduction in the time taken for the annual category review; OCTAVE now runs a roadmap of over 40 advanced analytics use cases, and Databricks usage has extended beyond OCTAVE into other business units.